Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8)

by Lauren Gilley

  “She lived alone,” Eden said, as Fox passed the flier on to Albie. “When she failed to show up at work for three days in a row – she was a veterinary technician – a coworker went to her place and found it empty. The mail had piled up, and the dog had soiled the rug, and all the sinks were bone-dry. Her car was found a few days later in the Kroger parking lot.”

  “Security footage?” Walsh asked.

  “Fielding says no. They checked back when it happened, but the car was too far from the store to make out anything definitive.”

  Albie shook his head and handed the flier off to Shane. “This is exactly what was happening in Texas – only no one realized it until the murders started. It brewed for months before shit escalated.”

  “So maybe this is just the beginning,” Walsh said. “Maybe we’re catching it early.”

  Eden said, “Knowing about it isn’t stopping it. And right now, it’s open season on pretty young women in Knoxville.”

  “Jesus.” Walsh wiped his hands down his face. “I’ll call Ghost. We need to get hold of Jimmy again. I need to get on the horn with some real estate agents: see if there’s property for sale that fits our bill, and is sitting empty.” He surveyed them all. “Em wants to have dinner. Family dinner.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re all invited, if you want to come.” His gaze sought Tenny, who was busy examining his nails, and didn’t look up. “You too, Ten.”

  Belatedly, Tenny lifted his head. “Me?”

  “You’re family, aren’t you?” Shane asked, encouraging in that totally un-Devin-like way of his.

  Tenny lifted a shoulder in an indifferent shrug, unaffected.

  “Bring Reese,” Fox said, on impulse – a rather mean one. When Tenny glanced his way sharply, he grinned at him. “Unless you have another date in mind?”

  Tenny sneered viciously at him, but he wore his sunglasses up on top of his head, now, and he couldn’t hide the panic that flared in his gaze. He turned away, and slouched to and out through the front door. His bike didn’t start, though; he was waiting for them.

  “I can’t ask after him,” Albie said, dryly, “but you can antagonize him. I see how it is.”

  “It’s good that you do. Shall we go?”

  ~*~

  “You’re the closest to him in age,” Ghost reasoned. “Well, besides the prospects, but those three are idiots, so.”

  “I was there last night when Tenny almost” – Carter drew a finger across his throat. “I don’t think he’ll want to talk to me.”

  “Well, he has to talk to someone, and you’re, I dunno, good at making people feel relaxed. Just drive him around.” He offered his own truck keys, the shiny, black Ram waiting behind him in the parking lot. “Fox and the boys will tail you, and they’ll go in if there’s any place that needs to be searched. Okay?”

  Carter took the keys, nodding, feeling a bump that wasn’t excitement, but was a sort of gladness to have been trusted like this, especially so soon after last night’s near-disaster. “Yes, sir.”

  Twenty minutes later, Jimmy Connors climbed into the passenger seat at Flash Customs, pale with no small amount of trepidation.

  His father stood at the open driver’s side window, glaring at Carter. “If you think you’re gonna abduct my son–”

  “I’m gonna drive your son around and try to jog his memory, which is a better deal than he’d get from the police,” Carter said, flatly. “He’s involved enough in Allie Henderson’s disappearance, and possible murder, to be arrested. Maybe you should calm the hell down and be grateful this is the worst that’s happening to him.”

  The man’s face purpled, but he stepped back, and didn’t comment further.

  Carter put the truck in drive and pulled out of the lot, Fox, Tenny, and Reese behind them on their bikes.

  Jimmy shifted in his seat. “I can’t help you,” he said, voice petulant and young. “They didn’t tell me shit. I have no idea what happened to Allie.”

  Carter sighed as he braked at the first red light. “But you cared about her, yeah?” A glance proved that Jimmy’s face paled further, and he gulped, audibly. “You wanted to go out with her, so that means you actually liked her, didn’t it? Or were you just trying to get your dick wet?”

  Jimmy spluttered a protest. “No! I didn’t – we never – I cared about her, okay? I like liked her, man.”

  Like like. Carter felt horribly old, suddenly.

  He nodded. “Okay, so, if you care, then you should want us to find her, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re the last one – besides your drug dealer friends – who saw her alive. So cooperating saves your skin, and hopefully saves hers, too.” He didn’t mention Nicole, too afraid that Jimmy would feel like he was being accused and clam up like he had last night. “Where did you meet them aside from the shop?”

  Jimmy fidgeted again, toying with his seatbelt, but he said, “A house, sometimes. Take a left at the next light.”

  Carter turned on his blinker.

  As they headed down the next street, Jimmy muttered, “You guys are drug dealers, too.”

  “What was that?”

  Jimmy hitched up straighter in his seat and turned to face him, feeling brave, apparently. “You guys deal drugs, too.” An accusation, petulant and pouting.

  Carter didn’t deny it, but he said, “What the Dogs don’t do is trick high school kids into dealing for us, threaten to kill their families, and kidnap underage girls.” He bit back a satisfied smirk when he glimpsed Jimmy’s chastened expression. “You made a dumbass mistake, Jimmy, and you’re paying for it – Allie may have paid for it with her life. You don’t get to pawn that off on us. Our sins have nothing to do with yours. Man up and take some responsibility for once in your shitty life.”

  He heard the boy swallow again, but he didn’t talk back this time.

  “Take the next right,” he murmured as they approached another intersection.

  They proceeded in silence, save for Jimmy’s occasional directions, and they ended up in an alarmingly familiar neighborhood. Carter felt the old prickling of anxiety sweat between his shoulder blades as they passed modest, run-down houses with chain link fences and crowded carports; weed-choked lawns and Beware of Dog signs. The windows were rolled up tight, but he swore he could smell cigarette smoke, charcoal, and garbage left out in the sun.

  His skin was buzzing, faintly, when Jimmy directed to a house only a few mailboxes down from the one where Carter had grown up; where his father still lived, presumably. He’d never bothered to keep up with the man after he came home from school, and didn’t plan to start now.

  He took a deep breath, cleared his mind of the past, and refocused.

  The house was small, probably a two-bedroom, chipped blue-painted siding, a carport, broken blinds in the windows and big flakes of rust on the iron porch rail. It looked vacant and abandoned, its carport empty, the grass of the yard waist-high and strewn with food wrappers and last fall’s leaves.

  “This is it?” he asked.

  Jimmy nodded, gaze tense and fearful now, pinned on the front of the house. “If the gate was open, it meant I could pull up. I would go in through the kitchen door.” A second set of concrete stairs led up from the carport to the side of the house.

  “Did you see any other part of the house?”

  “The bathroom, once.” He made a face, without looking away from the house. “It was nasty. So was the kitchen.”

  “You went in, got the stuff, and got out.”

  “Um…” He hesitated. “Sometimes I’d hang out a bit. They’d let me have a beer.”

  Carter was starting to actively hate this kid. “How many times is ‘sometimes’?”

  Jimmy shrugged uncomfortably. “Dunno. Five. Six, maybe.”

  “And you’d hang out a few minutes. A few hours?”

  “I dunno,” he said in a small voice. “I lost track of time.”

  Carter huffed a sigh. “Were you so starved for friends you thought hanging
out with a bunch of grown-ass criminals was a good idea?”

  “I wasn’t–”

  A sharp rap on the window startled both of them.

  Carter whipped around and found Fox’s unimpressed face on the other side of the glass. Heart jumping, he rolled down the window.

  Fox smirked, quickly, but then smoothed his expression and didn’t comment on Carter’s obvious startlement. “This is the place?”

  “He says it is.”

  “We’ll go take a look around. Watch the street. Call if something looks shifty.”

  “’Kay.”

  Tenny and Reese were already halfway up the driveway. Fox vaulted over the gate with the ease of long practice, and followed them.

  “What’s up with those guys?” Jimmy wondered aloud.

  “I dunno. They’ve got issues.”

  ~*~

  There was a distinct chance the personal, silent tension between them would reach a tipping point in the midst of going through the house, and Fox would be forced to physically separate them, but he knew he didn’t have to tell his two proteges to step lightly and keep touching to a minimum. A glance, once they’d picked the lock on the side door, proved they’d both pulled on leather gloves without prompt.

  Good boys, he thought with an inner surge of satisfaction, and tugged on his own.

  “Take it they didn’t entertain much,” he said, examining the kitchen. A scuffed, Formica-topped table and three mismatched chairs sat in the center of the room, but aside from a fridge in one corner and a microwave on the counter, the rest of the room was bare.

  Tenny pulled open an upper cabinet to reveal dust and dead moths.

  Reese headed into the next room, and Fox followed.

  Here there was moldy, stained carpet, mashed down from decades of foot traffic, and a sagging old sofa with a plastic slip cover. A TV – the old console kind, a lamp perched on top of it. One that clicked on, when Fox tested it: someone had paid the power bill recently enough that it hadn’t been shut off yet.

  They found a grungy bathroom, and two bedrooms, each with bare mattresses on the floor. A few stray articles of clothing: a sock, a black t-shirt.

  Fox picked the latter up, and sniffed it. “Sweat. And blood.” He held out a hand. “Let’s have a bag.”

  Reese produced one, and passed it over.

  “There’ll be DNA all over it.” He tucked it under his arm, and kept looking.

  It became quickly apparent, though, that there wasn’t anything else to find. The bathroom cabinets held basic first aid supplies, mouthwash, and a few grubby towels; some rolls of toilet paper. They found beers in the fridge, along with ketchup, mustard, and mayo; a still in-date package of ham. Bread moldered in the pantry cabinet. But there weren’t any humans here, and Fox doubted there would be again.

  On their last pass through, Tenny made an amused sound from over by the TV.

  Fox paused in the doorway. “What?”

  Tenny had crouched down, half behind the old console set, his back to the threshold. Reese stood a few paces behind him, his shoulders squared, and his bandaged hands curled into fists that had to hurt. Fox spared the boy a moment’s fleeting sympathy. There was a longing in him, too, even plainer, though perhaps more innocent than Tenny’s. A hurt, and a confusion. For all that he was easier to manage, and always more level-headed in a tight situation, he was still far less worldly. He was taking rejection hard, but he still didn’t understand, Fox didn’t think, that it was a rejection born of fear and self-denial, rather than any true hatred.

  Twenty-Nine

  Leah spent most of her afternoon online furniture shopping, browsing, mostly, though she did order some new bamboo window shades. She wanted to have her kitchen redone, but that would require professional help. She looked at tile and countertop samples until she was cross-eyed, and finally set the laptop aside to realize that evening was coming on strong, the shadows long and buttery across the floorboards, and that she’d skipped lunch and was starving. She wondered what Carter was doing; wondered how difficult his club errand had been.

  As if summoned, her phone dinged with a text alert, and she scrambled for it across the coffee table.

  It was Carter: Long day. We can still do dinner out, if you want. Or I can bring takeout and come over.

  Immediately, butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She wanted to equate the feeling to when she’d first started dating Jason, but it had never been like that with him, only a low, pleasant warmth at being seen and listened-to. You could build a relationship on that, a life, even; for a long time, she’d thought she would. Thinking about Carter – now that she’d stopped denying herself and truly opened the door to the possibility – left her breathless and heated in a whole new, thrilling, cliché way that was nevertheless intoxicating.

  Takeout’s good, she texted back.

  Be there in 30.

  She realized he hadn’t asked for her address, but that he probably hadn’t needed to: the rest of the guys knew it, Ava, too.

  She shivered, and went to freshen up.

  She had a minor crisis standing in front of her closet. What did one wear for a not-date in her own home with the boy who’d kissed her a few hours ago in a parking lot? Long day, he’d said, and it was just takeout, and it was just Carter, even if her pulse was pounding. She decided on casual: yoga pants and a bright orange t-shirt. She took her hair down, and shook it out; touched up her lipstick, a soft peach that wasn’t too loud for the occasion.

  She straightened her bedspread and plumped her pillows for good measure. “Wishful thinking,” she muttered to herself, but was grinning.

  A knock sounded at her front door ten minutes later, and she opened it to find Carter standing on her new welcome mat, two paper bags from Stella’s in his arms.

  There was a moment, before she found her voice and invited him in, when their gazes locked, and it hit her all over again, like it had that morning, in the few heartbeats before he stepped in close and touched her face. This was him. This was her. This was happening, when neither of them had ever anticipated such a thing. She wondered if the unexpected quality of it was what made it so thrilling – or if the thrill was long overdue. If this was always supposed to happen. She didn’t believe in fate, so she guessed there was no way of knowing.

  Then she pushed the door wide and stepped aside. “Hey, come in. Wow, how did you carry all that on your bike?”

  “I didn’t. I’ve still got Ghost’s truck.” He wiped his boots on the mat before stepping carefully inside. “Oh, this is nice.”

  “It needs some updates.” She closed the door. “But it’s roomy, and the neighbors are quiet.”

  He nodded, surveying her living room, and the big, ugly sofa, and the kitchen, and its laminate counters, and she couldn’t feel self-conscious about it when his face was nearly serene – definitely approving.

  “Where should I put–”

  “Oh, just on the bar there. I’ll get plates.”

  They portioned up the pasta and chicken he’d brought. Leah poured them both wine, and they sat down at her new kitchen table, across from one another. All they needed was a candle and some violin music in the background, and it would have felt like a real date.

  Carter ran a finger along the edge of the table. “Not that I’m an expert or anything, but Albie does make nice-looking furniture.”

  “It’s gorgeous.” Every time she ate at it, she paused to admire the intricate design of the top, the sheen of the varnish. “You bikers are all just full of surprises,” she teased.

  He shrugged and speared a tomato. “Some of them, anyway.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You have hidden skills.”

  His head, and then his brows lifted, a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

  She realized how that must have sounded, and knew she blushed. “I was talking about football,” she said, waving her fork at him in admonishment. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  “Uh-huh.” He innocently
went back to his food. “Though, considering I’m a sex fiend–”

  “I’m never gonna hear the end of that, am I?”

  “Considering you came up with it? Nope,” he said, pleasantly. A pause, and then he said, “But, for the record, as a sex fiend – it’s safe to say there are other hidden talents, too.” He shot her a wink, and a blast of heat flooded her insides.

  She’d not ever allowed herself to wonder about him in that way before. But she let herself wonder now, for just a moment, and the images that flashed through her mind, all promised in that smirk and that wink and the wind-ruffled yellow-gold of his hair, were specific. Graphic. Shocking, because this wasn’t a favorite actor prowling over her body, but Carter, very real, and very here, right across the table from her.

  Winking at her.

  She had to get a grip.

  “Um.” She reached for her wine, and his smirk widened into a true grin, straight, and white, and handsome as sin. “Stop. I’m trying to make conversation.”

  He made a go ahead gesture with his fork.

  “Conversation,” she repeated, after a healthy sip. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sue a girl if she hasn’t gotten laid in a while and you look like” – she motioned toward him helplessly – “that.”

  He leaned back a fraction, expression slipping. She’d surprised him, she realized, but hadn’t expected to.

  It was his turn to struggle for words. “You, uh – you like the way I look?”

  “Are you seriously asking that?”

  He shifted a little in his seat, uncomfortable. “I guess, yeah.”

  Duh, you idiot, she thought. Have you seen yourself? There was no way someone like him could look in the mirror and doubt his beauty. But he sounded skeptical, and doubt flashed in his eyes.

  Maybe it wasn’t about his objective good looks. Maybe…maybe he worried whether or not she was attracted to him.

  She considered their conversation that morning, and set her fork down. Laid both hands flat on the table and held his gaze, though it left her pulse jumping and her skin shivering. “Carter,” she said seriously, “I didn’t expect this, but that doesn’t mean I’m not – invested. Yeah, I like the way you look.” Doubt on his face, still, before she said, “Mostly because I know it’s you under the blond locks and the prom king smile.” She offered her own smile, and hoped it was enough. “I like you. The looks are a definite bonus, but they’re not the reason I came to see you this morning.”